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Parfumado raises €3.2 million to become the leading perfume and beauty sampling platform in Europe

Parfumado Group, an online platform for discovering perfumes & beauty, has raised €3.2 million in a pre-series A round. This addition increases the total investment amount raised by the company to €4.5 million. VC fund Borski Fund and Rabobank led the round, where existing shareholders (including Dragons' Den investor Michel Perridon) will participate again. In addition, leading entrepreneurs, including Wulf van Alkemade (citizenM Hotels), support Parfumado's mission by stepping in as angel investors in this round. The growth money will accelerate Parfumado's international expansion, realise further strategic collaborations, and further the product and platform through innovation.

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Founded in late 2017 by brother and sister Martijn (32) and Floor van Rooy (36), Parfumado is now one of the fastest-growing players in the online perfume & beauty sampling market.

The Amsterdam-based company responds to the (once physical) beauty market's shift to online. The COVID-driven digitisation spurt requires beauty brands and retailers to adopt new digital strategies to reach customers. Predictions indicate that by 2026, 50% of perfume purchases will be online, whereas, before COVID, this was only 15%.

Parfumado Group fits into this market shift by fulfilling the role of matchmaker between the brand and the consumer. For this, the group has two business models; a B2C subscription model for perfume (Parfumado) and a B2B targeted sampling platform for beauty (Rocket Campaigns). The company counts companies like L'Oréal, Rituals, LVMH and COTY among its partners. At this moment, most users of Parfumado Group are in the Netherlands and Belgium.

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For the next two years, Parfumado Group concentrates on becoming the European market leader. The scale-up currently serves three markets - the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK - and is planning to add two more markets in the near future. For now, the focus is on Germany and Denmark, but Sweden, Switzerland and Austria are also on the roadmap.

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"The transition from offline to online in the perfume category is moving fast: this speed means consumers are more comfortable discovering and buying products without being able to smell or try them in a shop first. For brands and retailers, this means they need a strong digital strategy to offer a rich experience to customers online as well. We see budgets at beauty corporates shifting to online, and we understand why - the future of perfume and beauty is online," said Floor van Rooy, founder of Parfumado. "This investment shows the potential of online sampling, and we look forward to working with our investors, who in addition to capital also contribute their international network and expertise, to change the way we discover perfume and beauty."